The Translator
by eavan
Summary: Jocelyne, an unlikely accomplice, becomes part of Jack's plans to reach his next treasure.
1. The Patron of the Lost

**The Patron of the Lost**

Jocelyne had few scruples about lying. In the last ten years of assisting at the clinic with the sisters she lied right and left, patient to patient. To one she was another Sister of the Convent, untouchable. To the next she was someone's daughter, another's sister, yet another's future sweetheart. In the center of her head and heart she knew she was none of these things at all.

At fifteen she had been married away from the Atlantic coast of France, home, and taken to the Caribbean. By sixteen she had been left there to fend for herself. No, it was nothing like it could have been. Now, at eighteen, she had daily work at the convent ward under the watchful eyes of St. Anthony.

The haze of the morning had already burnt away when Jo walked out into the plot of medicinal herbs. The yarrow had suffered from a shift in winds in the fall, but the lavender and sage were thriving. She walked without thinking, bending down automatically to brush the overgrowth aside where it spilled over the path. She stopped by the threshold to the vegetable garden, just left of the carrots, and drew herself to her full height. The air thrust up the rock from the ocean and eddied over the garden. Jo peered at the bright horizon and filled her lungs with the heavy salt scent. She closed her eyes and pictured the face of the man in the second bed from the end and bore him as clearly as she could in her mind as she made a petition to St. Peter.

As she let her eyes drift back open she mumbled to herself: _let him go peacefully_.

Absorbed in the petition, the light, the air, and the plants as she was, Jo failed to notice the commotion at the convent until the door to the garden slammed open such that the hinges screamed. She whirled around to see a sister stride toward the garden followed by the oddest man Jocelyne had ever seen. From her distance she could only make out cuffed boots, a flamboyant coat torn through and restitched at the shoulder, and a battered tricorn hat battling a nest of bead-strewn hair for dominance of his head. As she walked back to the house she found to her embarrassment that her gaze lingered on the way his breeches formed around his legs, and the way those legs looked lean and strong. She tossed her head to throw the thought out and walked more quickly to the door.

* * *

Inside the sisters assigned her to more patients than they ever had before. She'd been given the run of a room often unused and in a far end of the convent. Each of the four men was bleeding from at least one wound, and all had bandaged forearms. The one woman was free of the other wounds, but shared the forearm wrappings. They seemed more shocked and pained than fevered, so Jo busied herself with tending wrappings and keeping them as near sleep as possible. She was sponging the beads of sweat off the forehead of a man with trimmed whiskers along his jowls when his eyes blinked open and seemed lucid. "Lass," he croaked, "tell ol' Jack he's mad."

Muted footfalls from worn boot soles met the man's request. Jo looked up into dark, dark eyes rimmed in kohl. "Now Mr. Gibbs," a hand waved into the injured man's field of view as the man swayed toward Jo and back again, "I'd advise against tellin' the lady tales without the tellin' of the full tale—to do so would be bad luck, much to be avoided by a man of your current condition—and I'd advise against tellin' the full tale just at this moment," the man swayed forward again, hands steepled as though considering an important point, "a moment so early in our acquaintance." Jo was peripherally aware she'd been staring, slack-jawed, at the man. He lurched forward again, his hand extended to her. Without really thinking, she gave him her hand. "Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, luv."

If Jocelyne's face had shown shock before she was unsure what it was doing as he lowered his lips to her knuckles. Mr. Gibbs merely stared upward, apparently trying to focus his eyes on their joined hands above him. Jo retrieved her hand and with it, some of her wits. "Captain Sparrow, it is my pleasure. I am Jocelyne." Jo fought a wince as she heard her accented English stretch his name into "Spah-hrow" and press "it" into "eet." But what had he called her? "_Mais_, pardon me. You have called me 'love,' yes? What is this name?"

Jo fought another wince when the man's eyebrows twitched into the red bandanna around his head and back down again. The corners of his eyes creased with contained laughter. The injured man saved her further embarrassment. "Jack," Gibbs croaked, "Meant what I said. Ye're a madman, ye'are."

The man's pronouncement seemed to sober the Captain. Jo rinsed the cloth she'd been using on Gibbs' forehead and inspected his wrappings for blood before turning to the woman in the next bed. When Jo looked back away from her patients Sparrow was gone, leaving Jo to contemplate the fond tone with which Gibbs called him what Jo knew was not a nice name at all, and what on earth the Captain meant by calling her "love." For the second time that day Jo tossed her head to clear it and resolved to ask one of the Novices during the next meal. Satisfied with that reasoning Jo looked again at the still woman in the bed nearest the wall and decided to work some of the tangles from her long, thick hair.

For a week little changed in the sickroom other than Jo's increasing certainty that her patients were pirates. English pirates. Jo cared little for the disputes that led to the French and English staring down their cannons at one another but she knew this: it was unwise to be English in the port these days. Jo could not imagine it was wise at all that she was learning English in the very climate, or that she was caring for English pirates and learning that English from them. This rolling through her mind she told herself one morning it would not be overly superstitious to move the image of St. Anthony from her room to the pirates' sickroom. It seemed they could use the aid of the patron saint of the lost.

* * *

It had been a week and the pirates were awake more often than not during the day. Anamaria, especially, had become restless in her confinement. Jo secretly thought the tall woman was right in thinking she could go back to work. Her only remaining sign of injury was the bandage on her forearm. The sisters had early insisted on caring for those injuries themselves and Jo had not questioned their wisdom. She could not help her growing curiosity as the days passed, though, especially when the injury seemed to be all that barred the woman from freedom.

The negative side of Anamaria's recovery, and of Gibbs' as well, was their increasing prying into Jo's place at the convent. While she knew they—and all her patients in the past, for that matter—only asked her about herself out of boredom, she couldn't help but wish she could just go on thinking of nothing but the present day. Who wanted the past? No one. Certainly there was nothing back there worth thinking of. But Gibbs didn't think so.

"Well, little Jo. We've told ye the way Jack escaped being marooned. Now it's yer turn to tell a tale." The man grinned, his eyes crinkling.

"Aye! I've already heard all o' Gibbs' tales. Tell us." Anamaria's sat against the wall, her stern voice matching the determined look in her eye.

Jo's knitting needles stilled mid-stitch, and she hummed slightly as she peered at the ceiling. "I do not know any tales, Monsieur Gibbs. Only such talk as comes to a convent, eh? It is hardly of interest."

"Tosh." Anamaria sent a curt gesture into the air between them. "You tell us how you came here."

"S' a good idea, Jo. Tell us what brought you to the island," Tom, a thin youth with a young face, piped up from the far bed.

"All right, all right," Jo shook her head and held her palms up to them. "I surrender." She smiled at them. "It is not fair, the three of you and just me, no?"

"Ye're stallin'." Anamaria's voice was flat.

"Very well." The truth? Why not. She'd never see them again, once they were well. Jo took a breath. "When I came here, I was fifteen years. I had lived en France, near the sea. My mother, she married again when my father died. And he knew a man here, in the islands. He told my mother the man would care for me, so they sent me to marry him. I…I was a child then." Jo looked out the small window set deep in the wall near Anamaria's bed, and remembered. Her gorge rose in her throat. Enough of that.

"Well?" Anamaria's voice cut in.

"Now Anamaria, let the girl speak." Gibbs cut his eyes over at the striking woman. She glared back.

"Both of you stuff it. She's talkin'." Mason, the burly man next to Gibbs, cut in.

"I...ah…I married him just after I arrived at the port. I knew no one, and knew nothing of his reputation." Jo winced in spite of herself, and she could feel Anamaria and Gibbs watching her. "I knew no English, so I could not truly leave the port. I came to the sisters and asked for work. They taught me to care for the sick. So I am here with you."

"No, that's not all of it." Anamaria peered at her, her eyes not as hard as before. "You tell why you were trying to leave. He beat you. He did, didn't he?"

"No, no." Jo sucked in a breath. "Well. Yes. But that was nothing—I had a stepfather who did also, that was of no importance." She kept her eyes trained on the sea beyond the little window. "My stepfather had sold me to him."

"McLaggen." Jo whirled at the sound of a new voice. Leaning in the corner near the door was the captain. He had his steady eyes trained on her. She nodded. "He's a right bastard, that one."

"_Oui, vraiment_." The bitterness in her voice surprised her. "But it is no matter. I am here now, and even he no longer wants me."

"What does that mean?" Anamaria was impatient again. "You're still a woman."

"_Oui, mais_… Perhaps this is the tale you wanted." Jo smiled at Gibbs. "I did not leave quietly." Jo felt the scene come back together in her memory for a moment. "It had been a year. He was trying to appear respectable and gain access to higher company. I was part of that plan. Most nights he would insist I dress in silks, and he would take me to be seen: his new little wife from France, proof he was not a scoundrel. I did not know, most of the time, what he was saying. Still, I knew. I knew what he wanted to do. I saw his eyes on the women there. Even the girls, sometimes. I thought I could not let him get this, what he wanted, but I did not know how to stop him. I thought if I stopped going to the parties he would simply beat me until I would go again, _et_ that would be that."

"What did you do?" Tom's eyes were wide like a child's.

"Well, I started to think: what ruins a man?" Jo smiled to herself at the memory of the lists she'd made by a lone candle in the early morning. "I knew I could not take his money, or hurt him, but I could shame him. I could bring him shame." Jo glanced at Anamaria and found her grinning back. "He would always ask me to sing _en Français_ for the ladies and gentlemen. He thought it showed he was cultured. I thought of this. I thought: what if I started to sing tavern songs the next time he asked me to sing? He could not beat me in front of all the people. I could claim I did not know the words, and did not know they were low. I could say I just learned the song because he seemed to like it." Anamaria chuckled.

"So just sing 'em a tavern bawdy, then turn the innocent face on 'em, eh?" Gibbs let out a peal of laughter.

"I did. I talked to the servant he had working in the kitchen. I had her teach me the crudest English song she could think of. At a ball for the governor I started to sing it when he asked me. You should have seen them!" Jo hummed the song for a bit. As they recognized the one she'd chosen the pirates started chuckling, then guffawing. Even the captain let out a bark of laughter. After they calmed, Jo took a breath to start again.

"I did not think of the consequences much. I just sang my song. When he started to drag me from the house I thought, 'Oh, perhaps I will die of this,' but it was just a beating." Jo took her knitting needles back up from her lap and turned the rest of the nearly-forgotten stitch. "After several days of beatings each night I thought I would not live. I became afraid, and because I was afraid I knew I did not want to die there. Not like that, as some man's whore." She bit off the last word. Her eyes seemed focused at some point well beyond the room. Anamaria shifted on her bed. "The next night I hid a piece of glass in my hand when he came to me. He beat me. I took the glass and made a cut on my forehead, here." She lifted the sweep of her hair to show a thin scar that echoed the horizontal line of her hair. "I made it deep enough to bleed. Then I pretended to be dead. When he left I was not hurt too much to walk. That had been my hope."

"Tha's why you pretended to be dead," Tom breathed, "to get out walkin'."

"_Oui_. I walked to the convent and asked for the mercy of the church."

"You never went farther?" Anamaria's impatient edge was gone; in its place was something like curiosity. "Just here?"

"Just here," Jo echoed, "but it is far enough. He does not want me; he does not want to look for me. The patients here, they do not know who I am."

"Would you go, lass?" Gibbs' voice was openly curious.

"Ah. Where would I go? My English sounds so bad. My Spanish is good enough, but then to do what? Be a barmaid? Perhaps not." She shook her head. The captain threw his weight up out of the corner with an exaggerated show of keeping his balance with his arms. He swaggered across the floor towards her.

"I hate to interrupt this interrogation, luv, but there's need for a bit o' talkin' between me crew and meself." The captain locked eyes with her.

"I understand. I will go." Jo tucked her knitting beneath the chair and went to stand in the hall. Outside the closed door she could hear muted voices, but no words. As she stood there idle her mind returned to the bandaged arms, and to the captain. Secrets. Perhaps they thought she didn't know they were pirates? Surely they knew she knew. Gibbs had all but told her. Then what could be the meaning of the wounds on their arms? She scoffed at herself. Anamaria was right. She would not go farther. She wouldn't even ask them why their forearms were bandaged. She was timid.

* * *

In the next two days the captain rarely left the room, and Mason still was not upright. Something had crushed his kneecap—Jo hesitated to think of how such a thing might happen on a pirate ship—and he was far from walking comfortably even though the skin had started to close. When the captain was there Jo was not, for the most part. That simply meant more time to knit, she told herself.

It was on one such morning, with the captain inside, the English men came. One stopped a sister in the garden and demanded to be brought to the Abbess. Once the sister was gone Jo flew down the hall to the room, her heart in her throat. Knowing even as little as she did of the sea and piracy, Jo knew redcoats and pirates were not meant to be in the same building. She burst in the room, hair loose and skirts flying.

"What gale caught you?" Tom smiled at her.

"Please—there are English men here. In the convent. Redcoats." Jo dragged a hand through her hair and smoothed her skirt nervously. "The leader of them, he is talking to the Abbess now." Jo watched each pirate's face fall, then harden. The captain strode over to her with a much more stable gait than normal. He took her hands.

"Jocelyne, luv, I want you to do something for me." She nodded. "I want you to listen for anything you can hear from them. Can you do that?" She nodded again, and reached into the folds of her skirt. She handed him a small key.

"It is for the _fenêtre—_the window." She eyed the small casement. "If you must." Sparrow nodded. She left, careful to shut the door tight.

* * *

She had barely been gone a half an hour when a sister came to her and told her the redcoats would search the convent room-by-room for pirates. The sister scoffed at their insistence on such a thorough search, certain no pirates would seek harbor from the church. Jo could feel the blood leave her face.

When she told the captain her voice shook a little. He grinned at her, to her confusion, and tapped two fingers under her chin. "No need to worry yerself, luv," he grinned, "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."

Jo merely stared. Then the door opened, and not even minutes later the unmistakable sound of a sword leaving the scabbard cut through the little room. Jo whirled. Her attention was trained so thoroughly on the two redcoats at the door that it took her some moments to notice the chest pressed against her back, and the blade lightly resting at her neck. Several thoughts flew through her head at once, but finally one fought to the front: What do I have to lose? Within moments she was screaming at the redcoats in rapid, impassioned French.

The two men goggled at her, and at Sparrow. Then they dropped their swords. Anamaria and Gibbs swiftly hauled them into the room and knocked them out with the hafts of their own swords. "That will have them coming," Anamaria said.

"Aye, but to the door," the captain said. "Gentlemen…and Anamaria, we will take the window." Gibbs and Tom held Mason between them as they walked to the window, through which Anamaria was already climbing. Jo turned to the captain.

"There is a gate at the base of the herb garden that leads to a staircase. From there you are nearly at the docks." Jack held his hands up to her in an attitude of prayer. She wrinkled her brows at him. Tom climbed out the window.

"I'm truly sorry about this, luv." Jack hardly gave her time to digest what he'd said before he hefted her head first out of the window. Anamaria looked as startled to see her on the ground outside as Jo felt. But there was little time. Jack and Gibbs managed to squeeze Mason through and get out themselves just as the scuffle of redcoats battering the locked door started. Jack took Jo by the wrist and pulled her into the garden. "Lead the way, luv." It was with a stab of irritation that Jo began the walk away from the home that had kept her safe during the long two years since her marriage. But it was also with a pang of anticipation.


	2. None are Necessary but All are Useful

**None are Necessary, but All are Useful**

After a week at sea the captain called Jo into his cabin. She'd been spending the time changing Mason's bandages, helping him walk, and mending sails. As she made her way to the cabin that evening she couldn't imagine what she'd done wrong enough to merit a meeting. Still—perhaps it was her marriage lurking in her memory—she found her hands shaking as she lifted her fist to knock on his door.

Instead of a scolding she found herself in for a conversation with a very, very drunk Captain Jack Sparrow. "Y'know luv, I wouldn't be Captain Jack Sparrow without me secrets, me doings, as it were, in the world." He started to puff himself up, then deflated. "These doings keep me Pearl and me crew running, I'll have ye know." He lurched her direction and stretched an arm around her shoulders. "And now you, me little Jo, have a place in me doings."

"What is this…place?" Jo leaned forward out of his grasp. He followed and clutched at her shoulder again.

"Why I'm glad ye asked." He put a finger to his chin, just beneath his lower lip. Jo found herself staring at it a moment longer than she was comfortable admitting she had. "You see, me little Jo, I have a map."

"A map? This is your doings?" Jo's forehead wrinkled with the effort of deciphering Jack's ramblings. Meanwhile Jack had retrieved a folded parchment, which he laid out with a flourish. Jo peered at it a moment. "Ah! It is in French. That is why?"

"Yes," he tossed an arm around her again and bent with her over the map. "You see here," he stretched a jeweled finger toward a tiny landmass, "is where you joined me Pearl." He stroked the finger down a seam of the map; again, Jo found her mind thoroughly distracted by the motion of his hands, the timbre of his voice, and the slight sound of the beads in his hair clicking so near her ear. "Here," he turned toward her and smiled to show his gold teeth, "is where you'll help us go." He leaned even closer. She felt herself blush. "Savvy?"

"Ah…I will…I will try." Jo looked down at the map and as deep a breath as she thought he wouldn't notice. She brought her focus to the language on the map, and noticed a problem. "Captain?" He nodded slightly. "Some of the words, I do not know the English ones for them."

"Then you'll just describe them as best you can to ol' Jack, won't you luv?" Jo chanced another look at him. If anything he'd swayed closer. She swallowed.

"_Oui_, yes, I will do that."

"Good girl." He gave her shoulder a forceful pat. "Then we have an accord?" He extended a hand to her and flashed his gold-toothed grin again. She took his hand in silence, sure her voice would shake if she spoke. When he kissed her knuckles she thought her heart would fly out her throat.

* * *

The next day Jack did not make an appearance until some hours after Jo had come to expect to see him at the wheel. She had stationed herself where Gibbs said she'd be least in the way—though, admittedly, he had insisted she would be in the way until the moment she left the ship—and had not moved much all morning. The breeze was light enough not to toss her hair in her eyes, she had a pile of mended clothes on her left and another pile yet to do on her right. She looked to the horizon a moment before closing her eyes, face to the breeze, and thinking lightly that she was glad to be useful. Yes, that seemed to be what she could do. She could not be a wife, could not still be a healer, but she could be useful. When she opened her eyes she was smiling.

Then it was there. A ship? Something white that had not been there before, that was certain. The call from the crow's nest cleared her confusion. It was a ship. There was a burst of purposeful movement on the deck and Jo was reminded of the sisters near vespers. She had only a moment to think before Mason hobbled over to her.

"Captain says ye're to go to his cabin for the action, Miss." His bulk cast a shadow on her sewing; she looked up at him while she translated the words to herself.

"Action?" Jo had the feeling she was being dense, but she couldn't make heads or tails of the word.

"Aye. That's a sail the captain's after." Mason stretched a hand to her; she took it and stood. "That'll be a fight fer us, that will."

Jo's mouth reset itself in a nervous line. She resisted the silly urge to grab Mason by the arm. "You will fight with this?" She waved her hand toward the crutch. The large man wheeled around, tugging her with him. Jo pulled back. He looked at her seriously, and she considered his bulk a moment before deciding he could mind himself well enough. She looked back to her piles of mending. "Perhaps I could take them?" He nodded, now keeping his eyes trained on the approaching ship.

Jo had entered the cabin determined to continue making herself useful, as she had concluded she was meant to do that morning on the deck. But faced with the dark wood of the room, her inability to see out the windows, and the pervasive male scent of everywhere she found to sit, she seemed unable to carry out the plan. She paced from chair to window-ledge, alighting and popping up again at every noise. Finally she came to a stop in the middle of the room and scolded herself. Unfortunately it was that moment the real noise started. At the first yell she started so thoroughly she even felt a shiver run over her scalp. As the shouts came more frequently she clasped her hands together hard, her mind blank.

Finally a yell from Anamaria started her into action. Jo pressed her face to the boards of the door where a small crack let in light from the deck. She could see little, but she knew instantly what she saw. Blood. Enough to run into the grain of the wood. She turned decisively toward the bed. Her underskirt would serve for some bandages, but not enough. She found two nearly shredded shirts in the mending pile and set to tearing the fabric.

* * *

It seemed hours later when Mason came to the door. The creases in his hands were reddened with dried blood, but he appeared to be mostly whole. To Jo's great surprise he stopped her from leaving the cabin, and instead moved to allow the captain to enter. The captain was uncharacteristically quiet, and his swagger even restrained. Anamaria and Gibbs followed, and the three sat heavily in the wooden chairs around the table. Jo again made to leave as Mason did, but was prevented by a lazily thrown arm that caught her across the waist. She backed away immediately and followed the line of the arm to the Captain's face, though she could only see the side.

He was issuing orders about dividing up the treasure from the ship, and the two crew members were nodding now and again. Jo found she couldn't catch all of the words they used, though she tried. At length the two left and the Captain turned to her. She looked at him a moment and found she had no idea how to greet him, though she thought she should. She was pleased he took the burden from her.

"Help us with this coat, would ye love?" He stood and turned his back to her. She had to rise to her toes to catch the collar at the sides of his neck. As she pulled she felt a resistance near the shoulder blades. The Captain hissed lightly. "Jes' do it, luv." She winced a little and pulled. She'd barely seen the slice in the coat from the back, and the blood dried in the dark fabric had been camouflaged by the low light. Now, with nothing but the sliced pale shirt in the way, she could see a flap of skin peel back as she pulled the coat away. The wound wasn't deep, but it bared a terrible amount of blood and nerve. Without thinking she pressed her hands against it to stop the fresh flow of blood. The Captain hissed again.

She knew what to do: clean, stitch, bind. "I will need water. But if you have rum?"

"Pirate, luv." She could tell he was gritting his teeth. "In the case." He gestured toward the table and a small case beyond, but that movement caused even more blood to flow. She swatted at his shoulder.

"Stop. It will be worse." She darted to the case, grabbed a bottle, and retrieved the bandages and sewing kit before he had a chance to shift again. He immediately snagged the bottle from her and ripped the cork out with his teeth.

"Cheers." She stared at him as he lifted the bottle to her and took three large swallows of the rum. She grabbed it before he went back for the fourth. Her hands hesitated a moment at the collar of his shirt. _Come, Jocelyne, you have seen wounded men before!_ She set her jaw and pulled the shirt from his shoulders, waiting for the lecherous remark that usually came from male patients. None came. His hands gripped the edge of the table. She kicked a chair around to him and pushed him into it, then set to cleaning up the dried blood around the wound with a rum-soaked bandage. _You must. He knows you must._

"I am sorry," she said, and tipped the bottle over the slightly open wound. The rum ran a deep red out the base of the gash. The Captain groaned. Jocelyne returned her hands to the wound to press it shut. After a moment's thought, she passed the remaining rum to the Captain before moving to thread her sewing needle. The Captain hardly moved during the stitching; Jo was grateful. He would have a scar, but she could see from his back that he was no stranger to them. She cleaned the bloodied skin once more, then thought about the problem of binding it.

This would require passing the bandage around his torso, which would require putting her arms around him. For reasons she didn't care to think about, Jo really, truly did not want her arms around the shirtless Captain. Not even the drunk and wounded Captain. Once again she scolded herself, straightened, and set to work. To her mild surprise he merely sat through the bandaging as he had through the stitching. She knew he was awake, but he sat with his eyes closed and his hands clutched to the table. Setting the final knot in the binding required leaning over his shoulder; she blushed as her hair fell forward over his chest to brush his lap. He chose that moment to open his eyes.

He reached a hand up to her hairline and brushed her fallen hair back, his fingertips lingering on her scalp. Jocelyne's eyes fell closed and her hands stilled. When she opened them again the Captain was meeting her eyes. She stood sharply, gathered the bandages, and fled the cabin. She could barely hear him say, almost to himself, "That's interesting."


	3. Grace and Works

**Grace and Works**

After spending twelve hours avoiding the Captain, Jo admitted to herself she was being ridiculous. She was flustered enough to respond in French three of the five prior times Anamaria had asked her to check a wounded crewmember, and even young Tom knew her distraction had something to do with the Captain. Still, she was surprised to see a leather-covered flask thrust in front of her face.

"'Ere lass. You're making the rest of us jumpy now." Gibbs moved the flask even closer. Jo cast her eyes around to see Anamaria and Tom watching what she'd do. She took the flask and popped the cap, thinking how appalled the sisters would be.

"_Merci, Monsieur_ Gibbs." He grinned at her. Tom snickered. She took a hearty gulp and focused a moment on breathing instead of grimacing or coughing. Apparently she'd managed not to give away her shock at the burn and gritty aftertaste of the rum; Gibbs' grin widened. "My brother, he was right I think."

"How's that, lass?"

"He said I would prefer the taste of rum to wine." At this Tom openly guffawed, and Anamaria cracked a smile.

"Aye. Never did understand why you'd turn water into wine if you could turn it into rum." Gibbs looked off pensively. Jo turned to him, as did Tom and Anamaria, who'd given up all pretense of work.

"_Monsieur_ Gibbs! It is not for us to question!" She added to the effect of her mock outrage by placing a dramatic hand over her heart, but couldn't hold the laughter long enough for Gibbs to respond. "It is only for us to be thankful that we have the rum, yes?" She giggled.

"Shoulda passed tha' rum to her this morning, mate," Tom said.

"And to you as well?" Anamaria pinned Tom with half a glare.

"'S only Christian." Tom nodded seriously. With that Anamaria joined the laughter. Mason hobbled over to the ruckus.

"You lot got the Captain's attention, now." He mumbled as he passed. Jo stood and brushed her hands on her skirt.

"Yes, there is work to be done." She turned back to the three, "but should you feel Christian again sometime, _Monsieur_ . . ." She trailed off as she turned, intending to begin work in the galley. Instead she locked eyes with the Captain, who had approached while she was turned. Looking at him directly again made a blush fly to her face that she knew every crewmember on the ship could see. She acutely felt the need for more of Gibbs' rum.

"A word, Jocelyne?" It was not a request. She followed him to his cabin. To her surprise, he pulled out a chair for her. She sat assuming he would follow, and was surprised to see him reappear at the table naked to the waist. She blinked stupidly until her mind chose finally to focus on his bandages, which were some the worse for wear. She popped out of the chair and gestured for him to sit. He didn't. She worked to control the urge to grimace.

"Has it become more painful?" He had positioned himself such that she was stuck between him and the table edge and had to be very close to his chest to untie the knots in the bandages.

"Not much." She got the knots loose and started to pass the strip of cloth around to his back, telling herself it would be less mortifying to stand behind him for the rest of the process. But he was standing stubbornly with his arms at his sides. She wrinkled her eyebrows.

"Raise your arms, please."

"Anything you want, luv." She started to thank him for cooperating, but shortly after he moved his arms out of the way he dropped them on her shoulders and clasped his hands behind her neck. She gasped and her eyebrows shot nearly to her hairline. She knew from the weight of the arms on her shoulders that he was beyond strong enough to hold her there if he wanted. Her mind raced. She looked up at him. "Going to get on with that?" He glanced down at her still hands, clearly amused. Her mouth set in a line. She started removing the bandages with a little more speed than necessary, but slowed at the thought of having to restitch him.

For a moment she thought he would release her when she had finished removing the cloth, but instead he shifted around to her side and sat, placing her on his lap. Keeping a firm arm around her shoulders, he placed a finger to his lips and seemed to look for something in the room. He then turned to her with a keen eye. "Since we are…associates…there are a few matters we will attend to." He seemed again to be looking for something in the room. "McLaggen."

At the name Jocelyne couldn't keep herself from flinching. It was tiny, but she knew he felt it. He turned to her with an unreadable expression. "_Oui_?" She tried to force out her normal voice, but the sound seemed small in the room.

"Y'see luv, I've not got the only map." Jo's brow wrinkled. "As his attempt to join the gentry failed," he turned to her conspiratorially, "tragic, that," he waved a heavily ringed hand, "ol' McLaggen has gone to sea."

"To sea?"

"Aye. With a copy of the very map that I had thought, previous to our encounter with the gentlemen in the brig, was known to none but me," the Captain's gave an oddly feminine gesture towards his heart, then brushed his fingertips against her cheekbone, "and your lovely self." Jo's spike of fear at her former husband's name blossomed as she thought of meeting him here where she could not flee to the sisters. She had the strong instinct to run. The Captain seemed to feel it, and tightened his grip. Jo squeezed her eyes shut, and was blessed with an idea.

"But he does not know any French, _Capitaine_. None at all. I used to curse at him; he never knew what I said." Jo stopped her fear-induced babbling at the Captain's laugh.

"Then it seems he's not much good without his little wife, eh?" Jo winced.

"He is not much good."

"Be that as it may," the Captain smirked and gestured again with his jeweled fingers spread wide, "_you_ are going to get me Pearl to that treasure before McLaggen." Jo nodded. The Captain looked steadily at her for several moments, then released his grip on her waist. She stood and moved several steps away. After she put a fresh bandage on the wound she left with orders to return after the evening meal. She was going to start translating the map.

* * *

Jo spent the remaining daylight in the galley trying not to slice her hands as the ship pitched. Anamaria walked through the door just as a lurch sent Jo's head into a supporting beam and she let out the accumulated curses from a half an hour of similar injuries. She cringed when she heard her boots clunk through the door. 

"You learn that in the convent?" She smirked.

"_Non_, I learned that from five brothers." Jo smiled back and seemed to consider for a moment. "And one suitor."

Anamaria's forceful laugh filled the galley. "Only one for all that?"

"Mmm…I was only counting the one who made it past my brothers." Jo considered, grinning. "The others, my brothers took care of them."

"Took care of them." It was a question, though the intonation was that of a statement. Jo replanted her feet and turned back to her chopping for a moment.

"Most of them, they stop trying when five men sit them down, yes?" Anamaria nodded. "Too much trouble for a woman. But this one, he was rich and he thought my brothers could not touch him. So they tricked him. They sent him letters saying how much I loved him, how much I could not wait for his proposal. Then they set up a meeting." Jo paused, looking Anamaria in the eye.

"They set up a meeting with our cook, dressed in one of my dresses. She was over sixty years." Anamaria smirked. "And the cook, she was like my mother, she did not like this one. She said he was like a child. So she meets him and she tells him how she is in love with him. She pretends to be me. And what can he say? He has never truly seen me. He knows this woman is not me, but he is uncertain. What if I observe this meeting? He does not know. So he tries to talk to her about his suit anyway." Anamaria grinned widely.

"Here he is with this old woman in a garden at night telling her how lovely she looks in the candlelight and all this. How honorable a wife she will be." Jo laughed gently. "But that is not the best part. My brothers, they had taken all their friends with them to watch this." Anamaria guffawed, and Jo giggled in response. "He was so angry! He sent the most ridiculous letters. Some of them, I was so young, I had to ask my brothers what the words meant." Anamaria snorted. Jo had a sense that Anamaria had never been too young to know those words.

"You miss them." Anamaria straightened as she delivered the line with her usual certainty.

"I do," Jo nodded, "But there is no sense in that."

Anamaria looked at her shrewdly for a moment, then nodded. Jo felt as though she'd passed another test, as she had by drinking the rum. "Captain wants you to join him in his cabin after supper." Jo could only hope she'd kept her face neutral as a fresh wave of worry about her incomprehensible relationship with the Captain swept over her. She looked up at Anamaria and nodded firmly.

* * *

Jo was not very surprised to find Gibbs' flask in reach again at supper. She took it without comment this time, but noted the eyes of both Tom and Anamaria on her as she took a short swallow. _Bravery_, she said to herself. _Bravery_. 

Anamaria, of all people, broke the tension of her inner dialog. "You're already drinking and cursing like a pirate, lady," she said, with a thoroughly concealed grin under her usual smirk. Jo had to swallow carefully around the surprised snort she nearly let out. Tom perked up at once.

"Been at cursin' without us?" Tom asked.

Gibbs took his flask back, amusement in his eyes. "It's bad luck to curse alone, Miss Jocelyne."

"It is?" Anamaria smirked as Jo laid an innocent tone over her words. "Then I must teach you to curse with me; I do not know many curses in English."

"Then ol' Tom here's just the pirate you want to see," Tom puffed his thin chest out a bit at Gibbs' compliment.

"Aye. Set me mother rolling in her grave and all." Tom said.

"Then you will be happy to know many French curses do not involve your mother, yes?" Jo batted her eyelashes at them. Anamaria and Gibbs guffawed. Tom extended a dirty hand to her. She took it with some uncertainty about what was happening. He shook her hand, smiling at her. Jo thought she would ask Mason about this later.

That started an exchange in which Tom said things that ought not to be uttered in front of a lady, and Jocelyne translated them into their French counterparts as nearly as she could. She then gave a French curse and the closest English translation she could manage. Some of these terms required pantomime to get past Jocelyne's limited vocabulary, to the chagrin of Tom and to Anamaria's great amusement. Jocelyne's hands flew to her mouth at several of the English curses and the assembled pirates laughed uproariously at some of her brothers' French favorites. Not for the first time Jocelyne thought of what the sisters might say and decided she didn't really care.

* * *

Please review. I'm on the fence about continuing this and could use some feedback. Thanks. 


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